We are impressed by the potency of T cell immune responses for the treatment of cancer, and our work focuses primarily on using genetically engineered T cells to treat cancer, with an emphasis on chimeric antigen receptors (CARs). Our approach is to simultaneously conduct basic studies alongside clinical trials, leveraging an iterative bench-to-bedside-to-bench rotation to efficiently optimize clinically relevant cancer immunotherapies. Our laboratory efforts seek to enhance fundamental understanding of human T cell biology while creating novel therapeutics that we study through early phase testing in clinical trials. Our translational efforts seek to define mechanisms of resistance by deep interrogation of clinical samples obtained from patients treated in immunotherapy trials. Currently, we are intensely focused on improving our understanding of human T cell exhaustion and developing approaches to create exhaustion-resistant T cells, as our data identify this pathway as a rate limiter in generating immunotherapies, especially for solid tumors. We also seek to use synthetic biology to allow more precise tuning and regulation of CAR-T cells, thereby improving potency and diminishing toxicity.

I serve in numerous national leadership positions, including co-Leader of the NCI U54 Pediatric Immunotherapy Discovery and Development Network, Leader of the NCI Pediatric Cancer Immunotherapy Trials Network, and co-Leader of the St. Baldrick’s-StandUp2Cancer Pediatric Dream Team. I am also the recipient of numerous awards, including membership in the American Society of Clinical Investigation, American Academy of Physicians, several NIH Director’s awards, and the NIH Distinguished Clinical Teacher Award.